Plain Living by Rolf Boldrewood — Read

So at Windāhgil and Wantabalree the calm, uneventful bush life went on as usual. That life so peaceful, so wholesome for the spirit, so chiefly free from the sharp cares and anxieties of city existence-where the eye is refreshed daily with nature pictures, at once grand and consoling. The early morn, so fair and fresh, when the sun first glorifies the pale mists of dawn, changing all the Orient with magic suddenness to opaline hues and golden flame. The green gloom, the august solitude of the boundless forest, the glowing sunshine which pierces even its inmost recesses at midday; the wavering shadows, born of the inconstant breeze; the tender eve when a solemn hush falls alike on stream and valley, on mountain-side or wildwood glade, and all the ancient majesty of night awes the senses. For the Windāhgil family, the placid days came and went, lightened, as of old, by the regularity of customary home duties, by books and music, by walks along the rippling river, by rides and drives through the winding forest paths. Occasional expeditions to Wantabalree made salutary change for all. As the summer months wore on-as the days lengthened, and the mid-day heat became intense; as the fiercer sun rays commenced to wither the bush herbage of the river meadows, the many-hued wild flowers of heath and hill; as the watercourses, fed by spring showers, commenced to trickle faintly-there was a tendency to complain of the tyrant Summer, and yet to long for the Christmas-tide as a period of mirth and enjoyment-this year invested with a special charm.

For had not a telegram from some unknown, unknowable place, and costing quite a small fortune, arrived, which stated that Hubert, the _bien aimé_, would return at Christmas-actually return? "Like the prodigal," as Linda said, "only that it was the reverse in everything except the coincidence of its being ‘from a far country."